


Writing Prompts

by AllthingsnovelyFics



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Drabbles, F/M, Gen, M/M, One Word Prompts
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-15
Updated: 2015-08-15
Packaged: 2018-04-14 21:24:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,831
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4580655
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AllthingsnovelyFics/pseuds/AllthingsnovelyFics
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>I found a random word generator online and had some fun. The timeline of these prompts will be all over the place, from kid!lock to aSiP to beyond Series 3. I have a huge list on my computer, but I'll probably be posting them in groups of 20. Let me know if you have any prompts!</p>
            </blockquote>





	Writing Prompts

1\. Death

“All lives end,” Mycroft said, putting a hand on the thin shoulder level with his navel. His voice echoed slightly.

“Don’t start,” Sherlock sniffled, watching a lifeless Avogadro III as he swirled down the toilet drain, upon Mummy’s insistence. His big brother always had the same spiel for whenever one of his goldfish died. Mycroft sighed as the plumbing gurgled.

“Want to go buy another?” Black curls tilted back to reveal Sherlock’s tear-stained face now brimming with delight at him.

“I’ll get my piggybank! I was thinking about a line of Rutherfords. What do you think?”

 

2\. Opposite

Thought and action. Intellect and loyalty. Logic and morals. Brain and heart. Such polar strengths in each, but perhaps that is what drew Sherlock and John together in the first place.

 

3\. Red

John had never been squeamish around blood, which was certainly among the more important assets in medical school and subsequently the army and the surgery. This, of course, didn’t prevent the knot in his stomach whenever he remembered the sheen of Sherlock’s fresh blood on the pavement.

 

4\. Smell

From shoes to chipped paint to corpses, Sherlock was never afraid to get a whiff of anything for the sake of a case.

“You’re going to stick your nose in a rag soaked in chloroform someday,” John told him as Sherlock liberally sniffed through a suicide victim’s old gym bag.

“Doubtful,” Sherlock replied as he continued to rifle, “I’d know chloroform a meter away. Although I must say I am interested in testing chloroform’s effects on the human brain first hand, so, if it came to it, being rendered unconscious by an assailant would at least be fruitful.”

“Not my point.”

 

5\. Star

“That one’s beautiful, Sher,” John said, pointing. They were on a date, sprawled out on a hill overlooking the Thames; it was sometime past midnight and the sky was in fine form.

“Which one: that fiery ball of gas or the one next to it?” Sherlock said before receiving an askance look.

“Nature can beautiful, you know,” John said. Sherlock returned the look.

“I never said it wasn’t.”

 

6\. Not Enough

Going “cold turkey,” as they say, was no walk in the park for Sherlock. The migraines, the irritability, the twitchiness, and the mental boredom did nothing to encourage him in his endeavor. Something was now missing in his life that he had used as a crutch for so long to prevent him from turning to other means of stimulation. Fortunately, the new part of his life, the short army doctor recently returned from Afghanistan, was replete with medical facts related to smoking that, while were nothing new to Sherlock, did make him think twice whenever he started hunting for the hidden reserve of cigarettes.

 

7\. Lazy

Waking up in the morning was the worst part of the day in Molly’s opinion. Her only consolation to getting herself out of bed every day was the opportunity to carry on her duties and research in the morgue. Still, even that consolation sounded pretty rotten when she thought about it: looking forward to working with _dead people_. At least she had Toby: he was always happy to see her.

 

8\. Package

“Delivery for Sherlock Holmes,” said the mailman, holding an average sized box.

Before John could respond to him, much less call upstairs for Sherlock, he felt a large piece of fabric brush his calves and a pair of impossibly long legs and arms straddle his back and neck respectively from behind. “Lend me a hand here, John,” Sherlock said, casual as anything. After regaining his balance from the added weight, John instinctively reached back and grabbed Sherlock’s knees so that he was now riding piggyback. The doorway not being very wide, Sherlock had to squeeze by John’s shoulders to sign the clipboard, which was held out by the very confused mailman. Thankfully, this feat of acrobatics concealed the blush in John’s face that spread when he realized all Sherlock was wearing was his dressing robe. The coloration was caused by the fact that he was both embarrassed and relieved by this fact: embarrassed by his flatmate’s semi-nudity and relieved that at _least_ he was wearing his robe.

 

9\. Exposed

  
Once the mailman hurriedly left the strange sight and the door was closed, John let Sherlock drop without warning, though Sherlock was already on his way towards the stairs, like the human spider monkey he was.

“What was so important about that delivery that you had to fetch it before dressing?” John asked as he reached the landing.

Sherlock was sitting at the kitchen counter and had already unpacked a new lens for his microscope and was putting it to use; he gestured arbitrarily in answer since he couldn’t be bothered to speak. Speed walking, John retrieved a pair of dress trousers from the bathroom where Sherlock had been getting ready for the day, threw them in his general direction, grabbed the newspaper from the coffee table, and plopped down in his chair… facing _away_ from the kitchen. A sound issued from behind him that John only recognized as a chuckle from his three months in Baker Street; he snapped open the newspaper in reply.

 

10\. Gift

Anderson didn’t think he could be happier when he unwrapped his Christmas present to find a Blu-Ray copy of Disney’s “Dinosaur” at the Yard Christmas party. Then he saw who it was from: Sally. How she had found out about his secret passion for all things prehistoric he would never know, but he was not about to complain.

 

11\. Respect

As he grew up, Sherlock’s teachers never knew quite what to think of him. Academically, he was a star student; by the time he started Year 3, he seemed to know more than they had as 1st year undergrads. Behaviorally, well… he wasn’t _horrible_ , but he wasn’t an angel, either: curious to a fault, capricious, rude, and antisocial as he was. It was a relief to all when the Holmes decided to have their boys homeschooled. Mummy was the only adult who had Sherlock’s utmost reverence.

 

12\. Cooperate

As different as their methods were, Sherlock and Lestrade both worked toward a similar goal: bringing justice to London. John was not much of an athlete anymore – rugby was long behind him – but his recent service had taught him a few things about teamwork. Standing on the sidelines when his assistance wasn’t needed, he would often observe that if the two men could at least _pretend_ to be on the same team even _half_ the time, there would be fewer headaches for everyone involved.

 

13\. Network

When Sherlock had called Jim Moriarty a spider that day in court, he had only just came up with that analogy. He had not given it much thought before, but now that he had time – he was dead, after all, and had quite a lot of time on his hands – he realized just how fitting the epithet had been. “Prey,” “entwine,” and indeed, “web” were all words to come to mind when his late enemy came to mind.

 

14\. Siblings

John could barely remember life without Harry, they were so close in age. They had never been close as far as their relationship, though, until he had met Sherlock and started blogging avidly. Somehow, his words, which weren’t even addressed to her, mended some things between them. The insights into his strange new life seemed to be proof to Harry that her brother was actually someone other than just… her brother: someone who had a life outside of wordlessly judging her, ignoring her offers of help. And though perhaps she was not ready to open herself up to him just yet, ground was being made and that was all that was important.

 

15\. Time

532 days. John had counted them all. He’d used the dates on his blog to do it, though he couldn’t bring himself to reading any of the entries. Then was not a time for reminiscing. _I have the rest of my life to do that._

 

16\. Scene

“Boys!” Mrs. Hudson called up the stairs, “Come quickly!”

“Is there a murder?” Sherlock shouted, practically flipping off of the couch. He sprinted down the stairs with a sleepy John in tow. They had just finished a case: John was exhausted from chasing a master thief 6 kilometers up and down English countryside, but Sherlock was of course ready for something new.

“No, no, no,” Mrs. Hudson said as she waved a hand at him. She led them out of the apartment into the evening light, had them sit at one of Speedy’s tables, and fixed her eyes toward the horizon.

“Just look at that sunset!” She sighed deeply, propped her elbows on the table, and rested her head on her intertwined fingers. John smiled, but Sherlock barely blinked before standing back up and heading back inside.

“Call me when something happens that _matters_.”

 

17\. Taste

The only sound in the living room was the clack of keys against John’s fingers; he was researching a few technical details of the last case that had not made sense to him before he started his write-up. As suddenly as summer lightning, there was something moist touching the cartilage of his ear that was soon replaced by gentle compression surrounded in heat. There was a mouth on his ear. A very curious mouth, it seemed. John just barely kept himself from bristling. He was still so unused to this tender relationship he now had with Sherlock. In these early stages, any unthinking disapproval towards genuine shows of affection – even ear nibbling, a sensation John had never experienced before – could cause the loss of a lot of ground in Sherlock’s perspective on the various aspects of romance and love as a whole. Sherlock needed affirmation and John was going to give it to him… even if that meant jumping out of his skin from time to time. So, John turned in his chair, craned his neck, and met the lips that were there waiting for him.

 

18\. Drive

John did not mind being behind the wheel, but his time in Afghanistan did nothing to help his road paranoia. So when cabs weren’t available, Sherlock was usually elected as driver.

 

19\. Sea

“So, how was your holiday?” Sherlock asked, for once trying to be sociable, though he continued to mess around on his mobile. They were back at the Yard and Lestrade looked up from the follow up briefings on the Baskerville case to double check whom Sherlock was addressing so matter-of-factly… and sociably. “Oh, um. Good. Fine, thanks. The wife and I went to Dover for the weekend.” “Good.” “Yeah.” Silence, then more shuffling of papers and tapping on a touch screen. “You’re still as brown as a nut.” “Yeah, I’m aware, thank you.”

 

20\. Amount

One could tell the state of London’s underworld by the weariness of the members of Scotland Yard and the vigor of Sherlock Holmes.


End file.
